


The Lights Go Out When You're Gone

by SimonBlackquillEatsASandwich



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Angst, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 20:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5641399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SimonBlackquillEatsASandwich/pseuds/SimonBlackquillEatsASandwich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doctors had been mystified for a few years by what they liked to call the 'Soulmate Phenomenon.' Minimal information had been found on this topic despite extensive research, and the best that so-called experts could come up with, much to the public's dismay, was that people who met their soulmates would not be aware of the fact until one of the pair died, in which case the remaining person would go blind. The death of a person who had not crossed paths with their partner would bring no harm to the survivor.</p><p>(Otherwise known as: a pretty depressing Soulmate AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lights Go Out When You're Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! So, I wanted to write a soulmate AU that was a bit more angsty than usual, because I find most often that they have really happy endings, so I wondered what a sadder one would be like. The premise of the blindness was actually thought up by my fantastic beta and real life best friend AwesomeSauce, whose stories are available at werdsmith.com/IWrite, so I highly recommend checking her out. It's a really cool mix of fanfiction and original stories, and I think you'll find that her stuff is seriously 'awesome sauce!' Thanks for reading!

Doctors had been mystified for a few years by what they liked to call the 'Soulmate Phenomenon.' Minimal information had been found on this topic despite extensive research, and the best that so-called experts could come up with, much to the public's dismay, was that people who met their soulmates would not be aware of the fact until one of the pair died, in which case the remaining person would go blind. The death of a person who had not crossed paths with their partner would bring no harm to the survivor. Neurospecialist Midorima Shintaro, one of the best Japan had to offer, had once published a paper on the topic of soulmates. He had found his in a man named Takao Kazunari, which he was unaware of until Takao-san's apartment building burned down with him in it. Midorima spent years studying his own brain, trying to find a clue as to what could possibly have caused his blindness, but to no avail. The paper unfortunately held barely any information and had the depressing air of a man lost with no way back.

Thus the people of the world were in general recluses, doing everything in their power to lessen the probability of having the horrible fate of meeting their soulmate. They spoke only to who they absolutely had to, mainly family, and made friends either through the Internet or with people they had accidentally met face to face. Dating was all but outlawed. If one did lose their soulmate, many reckoned, they would not have to deal with the pain of losing a loved one in addition to being blind. Most worked from home, but a few brave people took on the most essential roles: paramedics, policeman, and firefighters. 

Aomine Daiki was a policeman from Akihabara, one of only five people in his department willing to take the job. A long time ago, he and Midorima had had some semblance of a friendship, though that was a story for another day, and the green-haired nerd always seemed to harbor a love of the occult, or as Aomine liked to put it, “that stupid voodoo shit.” Despite expressing his deepest, though mostly insincere, condolences after the death of the doctor's boyfriend, he thought of the new blindness as unfortunate but unrelated. Besides, in addition to a fascination with the supernatural, Midorima had always had bad eyesight.

One of humanity's favorite things to do was panic, and for the last five years or so they had been doing so with barely any evidence to support the need for panic. There were many more problems in society they could have been worried about, such as the rising crime rates. With only one or two stores still operating in all of Akihabara, people got what they needed either off the Internet or by stealing from nearby stores that had become unmanned. Aomine would have been happy to ignore these calls, as they were no real threat against anybody, but nosy neighbors loved to peek out from behind curtains, and he was required by law to show up on the scene of any crime that was reported. As the lowest ranking officer, though that didn't mean much out of five, it always turned out to be his turn to do this.

It seemed that the call that came in on that day, January 2nd of the new year, would turn out to be uneventful and boring as they always were. The department received a complaint of gunshots and an address, though it was more likely in Aomine's opinion that some idiot had kicked a door in a little bit too hard on their first time looting.

His interest was piqued slightly upon the realization that the address given was residential, but he figured that some people must have resorted to stealing from the abandoned houses that rich people had left to go live in the less populated countryside. 

The ride over, as always, was barren of people and bleak in scenery, but he had laid eyes upon it so often that it no longer brought on any unease in Aomine. Curiously, this 'house' was in fact an apartment building, a still inhabited apartment building judging by the way the curtains were all drawn but not boarded up. He would do his best to avoid civilians, both because they were probably spooked enough by the loud noises anyway and since many of them tended to irritate him. 

There was no reason to take the elevator, in fact there was a chance that it had not been serviced for a while now, so he started a light jog up the stairs until he had reached the tenth floor. Apartment number five was the one he had been called to, and he banged on the door unceremoniously, but no sound filtered out. He swung his leg back, bracing it to kick the door down when a few minutes had gone by without any response. He had set out to avoid causing a panic, but if there really was some sort of emergency inside, it was in this case necessary. 

After a few tries, he could hear the lock break as the entrance flew open. To put it simply, the room was a bloody mess. There were red splatters on almost every wall, with a reach so far it was almost impressive. Despite those streaks here and there, most of the blood had pooled in the dead center of the floor. There, the source could also be found. In the middle of the room was a corpse, looking rather pathetic as it lay prostrate in the middle of the room. He stepped backwards disgustedly, ready to call the guy who picked up bodies, thanking god that that wasn't his job. However, in the moment after it became apparent that the corpse was not a corpse as it groaned and shifted slightly. 

Aomine knew the first thing to do was call the paramedics and hope at least one of them were nearby and free. He did so, relaying the situation and address as quickly as possible, but having no idea what to do as the conversation ended.

He bounded over to the dying man, trying to be cautious but at the same time feeling a need to help the poor guy. It was his job after all, as a a policeman. He leaned forward, searching dull red eyes and hoping to find a hint of cognizance, but it seemed that the victim in question was barely keeping himself awake. 

“Help is on the way, sir, they should be here in a few minutes,” he spoke, not really feeling bad that he had know idea whether or not that was true. No response came, unless pained grunts counted, and Aomine resigned himself to the fact that this man would probably not survive.

While that was true, it would take days, weeks even, to fully understand what happened next, to truly wrap his mind around it.

His sight was not gentle as it was snatched from him. The whimpers coming from the floor died down, but as the final one escaped, Aomine thought that there must have been some sort of power outage. It wasn't uncommon in their area, and that was the only justifiable, sane explanation for the newfound complete and utter darkness. 

That was the only justifiable explanation until the first aid squad came and they could see perfectly fine, acted like he was the one with something wrong with him. Slowly and cruelly, it dawned on him what had really happened.


End file.
